LogFAQs > #910884528

#10: Cala Maria
Difficulty: 9/10
Design: 9/10
Fun Factor: 6/10

This is the kind of fight that makes me realize what they were trying to do with plane fights. This is just a brilliant execution of the concept, and it makes almost all of the other plane fights look worse just by comparison. You have her firing off two completely different attacks at once in the first phase, for example sinking three ghosts at you while you're dodging explosive fish mines, and you really need to use all the screen the game gives you to avoid getting hit. And then you have the second phase, where you need to move between killing the snakes and attacking her head and there is a legit strategy to your movement here that can't really be duplicated in the standard levels. This is proof of how good the plane levels can be if they're really trying.

And the design is phenomenal. There's almost too much I like here. The transition from the first phase to the second phase, where electric eels come up, bite her, and awake her snake hair is absolutely incredibly. I love her playful movement and how it kicks up a bit during the second phase. I love all of her sea based attacks and all her different little fish helpers that come out at aid her in battle. I love the way the snakes play the violin for her after your victory. I love everything about this battle. You saw this all over the promotion for this game and for good reason - it is one of the best designed in the entire game.

The only thing holding her back from being a top three boss for me is I think this is the only example in the entire game of what I consider "unfair" difficulty. It's not game breaking or anything like that (although it can be nearly controller breaking when you're going for your final S rank), but it is the one example in the entire game I can think of where you can take damage and it feels cheap.

In her second and third phases, she can petrify you (since she's a medusa and that's sort of what medusas do). The problem is you can't avoid this attack and other enemies will be firing off projectiles at the same time. You need to quickly break free of your stone prison by waggling the sticks back and forth, and if you get hit by something (a projectile or a piece of the environment) you take damage. And while it is totally reasonable to get through this without getting hit three times, it can be quite a bit harder to get through without getting hit once (I JUST WANTED MY FINAL S RANK YOU PAIN IN THE ASS MEDUSA/GORGON).

The second phase has what I'd call "reasonable asshole-ery" where you can reduce your risk by killing the other snakes popping up from the water. You can't completely guarantee you won't get hit, but as long as you're planning things out right you can bring the chance down tremendously. There are other fights like this (the Devil comes to mind with his running imps combined with some poorly planned primary attacks) where there is some RNG and you can get screwed over, but you can optimize your chances by playing well and having a good strategy. I'm okay with this level of dick-etry because I kind of signed up for it. I'm ok with the game occasionally pulling my shirt over my head and drinking my juice box as long as I can reasonably protect myself from this bullying.

The third phase is a different beast, because you can be playing almost perfectly, get petrified at a terrible time, and then wind up getting hit by one of the snake attacks, or a random poorly placed barrier, or just the edges of the corridor. I can't remember how many runs I finished with 2 hearts because of three, but I do remember I had to explain to my wife at 1:30 in the morning why I woke her up by calling a cartoon medusa a son of a bitch too loudly.

She's a fantastic boss, don't get me wrong. She's just a son of a bitch too, I don't care what my sleep deprived wife says.
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Moops?
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